BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

ivo-cobra8 Disclaimer: If you are a viewer that mainly prefers art-house-type movies, then you might as well ignore this review. In addition, if you're not able to take a John Woo's best adrenaline HK classic action sequel flick , ignore this review, as well. We'll both be better off.A Better Tomorrow II (1987) is an adrenaline action sequel flick the best one of the two from John Woo. I know that the first one is an action classic for many of the people and they always going for the first one, but my favorite flick is this sequel. I know that The Godfather (1972) is my favorite film in the series but from John Woo's A Better Tomorrow is actually A Better Tomorrow II my favorite John Woo film. I love this movie to death, the acting is wonderful, believable and very realistic and Chow Yun-Fat which is my favorite actor gives one of his best convincing performances I have ever seen as Mark Gor's twin brother Ken. Not only he but everyone of the cast gives a wonderful performances on a screen which I love it.Plot: Restaurant owner Ken Gor, twin brother of Mark Gor, teams up with police detective Kit and his struggling ex-con brother Ho to avenge his old friend's daughter's death by a Triad gang.What I love about this movie is: Chow Yun-Fat does not die in this movie he acted wonderful his different character Ken. Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung are back as the brothers from the first film which I am not sure but I have saw a lot of actors from The Killer in this movie. This movie was also filmed in New York which you can see Twin Towers from the distance before it was destroyed in 9/11 terrorist attack. John Woo made one of his best action debut and making a perfect shots with the camera of this film. I admitted I am not a the biggest fan of the first and the third movie but this one surprised me which I loved it. In my opinion this film is better than the original. Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung's characters Ho and Kit are actually more well written than they were in the first. I hated it how Kit was treating his older brother beating him in the rain, treating him like a peace of garbage I hated that. In this film we see Kit's love and compassion toward his older brother Lung. Both of their characters were well written.This film is about a counterfeit dollars that are produced in the business and a new boss from Ho took over Lung Sei's business while framing Lung for a triad gang member's boss murder which he did not committed in which Lung had to flee to America New York, but his daughter was killed. The plot is about a revenge: Lung Sei (Dean Shek), Ho (Ti Lung) and Ken (Chow Yun-fat) are taking revenge against new triad boss Ko Ying-pui (Kwan Shan) and his group of army killers. Lung Sei want's revenge for the murder of his daughter Peggy (Regina Kent), Ho want's revenge for Kit's (Leslie Cheung) murder and Ken want's revenge for his restaurant in New York that has been destroyed. That is the film about. It has a lot of action and kick ass scenes and it also has a human emotional portrayal from the actors.I love the action sequences in New York from Ken (Chow Yun-Fat) in the hotel a group of assassins comes to kill Ken and Lung Sei (Dean Shek) Which Ken (Chow Yun-Fat) uses shotgun Franchi SPAS-12 and kills several mafia gangsters in the hotel New York. He fires several rounds with two Berettas 92F on a gangsters than flees while he fires another round with another gun on an assassins car. The final showdown and the last stand off with two Berettas between Ken (Chow Yun-Fat) and Chong (Lung Ming-yan) the firing scene was outstanding performed I have ever seen. John Woo tried that scene in Hard Boiled but he didn't want to copied his own work so he change it. Ti Lung uses a samurai sword and he kills bunch of gangsters. The trio of friends uses a lot of guns and grandees while killing a bunch of gangsters. The final showdown for me was spectacular.Overall: This flick get's a perfect 10 by me. Chow Yun-Fat and Leslie Cheung's screen time was beautiful shot, well written and acted perfectly. Theme score from the first movie was also beautiful, the action scenes where incredible. They don't make action movies like this one today. This flick is far way better than John Woo's Once A Thief. With Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Hard Boiled, Paycheck and The Killer would be a Better Tomorrow II my sixth John Woo favorite film that I love to death.A Better Tomorrow 2 is a 1987 Hong Kong action film written and directed by John Woo. A follow-up to its popular predecessor, A Better Tomorrow, the film stars returning cast members Chow Yun-fat, Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung alongside new cast member Dean Shek. The film was released in Hong Kong on 17 December 1987.10/10 Grade: Bad Ass Seal Of Approval Studio: Cinema City Film Workshop Distributed by Golden Princess Film Production Starring: Dean Shek, Chow Yun-fat, Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung, Emily Chu, Kwan Shan, Kenneth Tsang, Shing Fui-On, Lam Chung, Ng Man-tat, Peter Wang, Lung Ming-yan, Louis Roth, Regina Kent Director: John Woo Producer: Tsui Hark Screenplay: John Woo, Tsui Hark Rated: R Running Time: 1 Hr. 45 Mins. Box Office: HKD 22.700 (Hong Kong)

oneguyrambling Still directed by John Woo, still with the same cast as the first, only different.To recap: Ho is a former criminal gone straight at the request of his late father. Kit is his little brother, a policeman, now undercover.Mark, played by Chow Yun Fat, is now dead, but Chow Yun Fat was famous by this time so he returns in daytime soap style as Mark's twin brother Ken.Lung, the guy who previously sold Ho out and cost him a prison sentence, now runs the crime gang that he was a member of. Right. So Kit is now undercover trying to bust Lung, who wants to go straight for the sake of his daughter. Kit tries to crack onto the daughter in the hope that it will give him access to Lung, only Kit is married with a pregnant wife, and he doesn't tell her his plan.Ho is in jail, only he is released on the proviso that he also go undercover to uncover dirt on Lung so he can be busted, which he only does once he realizes Kit is in danger.Still with me? It only gets more convoluted and unnecessary from here.So Lung is inadvertently involved in a murder so he flees from Hong Kong to the US. His former 2IC Ko takes the reins of the crime gang and decides that with Lung dead he has free reign, so he sends assassins to the US to bump off Lung and kills his daughter in Hong Kong for good measure.And this goes on for another hour! Needless to say A Better Tomorrow 2 is long-winded, melodramatic and altogether too confusing, yet it is a better film than one thanks to John Woo hitting his straps in directing action sequences.It turns out that Ken (Chow Yun Fat) gets involved with Lung in the US (where he proves that he shouldn't have tried to speak English on film, at least at that time). When the bad guys destroy Ken's restaurant he decides to take Lung back to Hong Kong, where they team up with Kit and Ho to take down Ko.(Why are they suddenly buddies? After all Kit hated Ho in the first film, Lung sold out Ho and caused him to go to jail, and Ken has just arrived on the scene? So they can have a big Woo-ey shoot out at the end of the film. That's why! The fight scenes are far better than the first film, the same amount of bad guys get killed but in a more aesthetically pleasing manner. Woo has been described as directing operatic violence and this looks like one of the early incantations of that.Final Rating - 6 / 10. Too long and way too complicated. But it is an action flick, and the action scenes are better than Better 1, so I give this the edge.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

wanderingstar Chow Yun-Fat is back, teaming up the cop "Kit" and ex-con "Ho" to deal some serious whup-ass on a gang of thugs, for killing their friend's daughter.This one's not John Woo's best but it's still great in the genre of HK cop movies. The first half is not as good as the second, with some plot holes and kind of weird scenes establishing the state of mind of their friend (whose daughter was killed). Not to give anything away but - you will see what I mean.Better Tomorrow II proves that nobody looks cooler wielding a 12-gauge shotgun than Chow Yun-Fat (ok, maybe Schwarzeneggar in T2).The final gun battle at Ko's mansion is phenomenal - it gives Scarface a run for its money in terms of body count and ropes of blood splashing on walls. I love Woo's explosive style of close gun battles and over-the-top carnage. I mean, is it really necessary, once pumping 2 lethal rounds into the bad guy's chest thus assuring his death, to empty the clips from both handguns into him as he is staggering back? Better Tomorrow II states emphatically - YES!

poe426 It's unfair, I suppose, to expect too much from filmmakers who are, after all, only human; but, it happens. We come across THE KILLER or A BETTER TOMORROW or HARD BOILED and we think that everything this director directs will be of like caliber (so to speak). And when we hear that a A BETTER TOMORROW II exists, we spend too much time and too much effort searching it out, expend too much hope that it'll make the aforementioned "Gun Fu" trilogy a quartet; and when we find, in the end, that we've simply set ourselves up for a major disappointment, we can't help but point the finger of blame at the blameless filmmaker himself (who, after all, tried, who gave it his best shot, if you will: only our own expectations have been dashed, because we took it upon ourselves to deify a mere director of motion pictures; to expect any more from any director in any genre may be expecting too much). But there's always, as the song says, tomorrow...